Hey, you with the silver hair and the heavy heart –
I am taking you with me.
Up to the heights
old friend,
brother,
you.
Yes, you –
Just let go
of the shackles,
and rise with me.
Can you see they are falling off?
Can you feel the shift in the atmosphere?
I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to realize –
I’m here fighting for you in prayer.
Angels are surrounding you
with the inescapable majesty of Love.
It’s like a symphony rising up all around –
we are being lifted into a new dawn.
Open up to the invisible reality!
We’ll be free together –
connected across the barriers of time and space,
glowing from within
by the power of the same Light,
held together in one Majestic Heart,
healed by the power of Unconditional Love.

John 17 20-25

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you e known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Do you ever get a sense that the burden you carry is not your own? Empathy is an intangible phenomenon but so very real and worthy of our attention. Through personal experience and study of theology and mystical literature, I wholeheartedly believe we are invisibly intertwined with one another across time and space, along with being connected to our Divine Creator. I believe we all experience and are impacted by this interconnection on some level but some of us are more conscious of it than others. As Jesus prayed “that they may be one as we are one,” I believe he is linking us together to Him, who can help us break free of the exchange of suffering we would be bound to without that grace of reconciliation to a higher power.

When I bring a burden of heaviness for another into prayer, and that burden lifts off of me in a tangible way, I believe that peace and connection I am feeling flows out toward the other person as a blessing of grace by the power of God. It’s an act of love to care so deeply about another that we take their own burdens on, but it’s not helpful to stay stuck in that suffering. No matter how heavy the burden – in prayer, we can find supernatural healing, deliverance and peace that can be transmitted to others in Jesus’ name. He died so we could have access to that grace, which waits too often as the greatest untapped natural resource.

“Grace is the vital nutrient your soul needs to thrive. The grace I so freely poured out on the cross is yours to distribute. The battle is already won, but as you realize it on deeper and deeper levels, you get to flow that infinite wellspring of love and peace out on others on deeper and deeper levels. You are made in my image to pour my victory out on one another. To nourish one another with my infinite wellspring of love. To bring each other into the fold. To be redeemed of your human condition, which can feel so unbearably hard. As you grow closer to me, you can only be fed by feeding others. As you nurture your oneness with me through prayer, you will naturally bring others into that sense of interconnectedness, which is the source of true life, love, peace and abundance of every kind. Please be assured this wellspring will never run out. I have so much more to give than you can even begin to imagine. You need only to ask, and you will receive for yourself and others, always into eternity.”

What is your experience with empathy? Do you have a tendency to take on the suffering of others? Do you find the peace of the Lord in prayer? When’s the last time you felt His loving presence with you, washing away all of your troubles and filling you with the peace only He can bring? Comment below, and I will be delighted to keep you in my prayers!

Lord, help us to remember the healing power and grace that flows from relationship with You, our Divine Creator by the power of Your Spirit. When we get bogged down in compassion fatigue, due to our tendency to empathize for another even across time and space, strengthen us to seek you with all of our hearts and to deeply trust that peace and healing will triumph over this struggle and flow into the person and situation we are concerned about. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

written by Nicky Gant for http://www.uniteinprayer.org 6/25/2022